Joseph C. Pitt, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Philosophical
theories of scientific change abound and, for the most part, they have one
thing in common: they are theories of rational justification for changing
scientific theories. That is, they are not about science
per
se
,
where science is construed as a social process whose main activity is the
generation and testing of ideas about the composition and structure of the
material universe. The kinds of theories of scientific change I have in mind
are exemplified by the work of Popper (1959), Lakatos (1970), Kuhn (1962), and
Laudan (1977). These are philosophical theories whose focus is a theory of
scientific rationality and which attempt to provide a justification for
abandoning one theory in favor of another. They often proceed by examining the
logic of the language of support for scientific theories. Science ought to
change, on these views, when current theories are shown to be defective because
of failed predictions, or inadequate evidence, or decreasing problem solving
ability. Built into these accounts is the assumption that rational scientists
accept theories which meet these conditions. In short, these are all theories
in the positivist tradition of the philosophy of science, where the center of
attention is the logic of philosophical concepts about science. And, to no
one’s surprise, these treatments of the topic of change in science are
sterile and unconvincing.

There
are also non-philosophical accounts of scientific change—one hesitates to
call them theories—that do pay attention to the social processes of
science. Good history of science, both internalist and externalist, social and
institutional, provides us with much valuable insight into the workings of the
sciences. Then there are the sociological treatments of scientific activity.
These, in general, are not so helpful, for they ignore the subject matter of
scientific theories and the role it plays in the activity of scientists,
concentrating only on the scientists, imposing on them a variety of
unsubstantiated psychological motivations for their actions.

In
this paper, I am not going to worry about history and sociology, although what
I am arguing in favor of has need of both done well. Here I am concerned to
develop a
philosophical
account of change in and of scientific theories which really is about science.
The heart of this project is to see mature science as an historically
contextualized social process embedded in a technological infrastructure. A
technological infrastructure is a complex set of mutually supporting
individuals, artifacts, networks, and structures, physical and social, which
enable human activity and which foster inquiry and action. Thus, for any
particular technological infrastructure of science, the science is but one
component of the technological infrastructure. The other components are,
strictly speaking, not science, i.e., do not directly deal with the
investigation and understanding of nature. However, without them that
particular scientific activity would not be possible at that time and in that
place. This implies that the activity we call science needs a social
environment, which it does, and that science does not proceed in a vacuum by
itself, which it does not, and that the engine of science is technological, not
logical or psychological. Scientific change results in a change in the
scientific explanation of the structure and functioning of nature. It, in turn,
is the result of changes in the technological infrastructure within which the
explanations are generated. For example, the launch of the Hubble space based
telescope is providing the impetus for the development of new cosmological
theories. Likewise, the creation of the technology of gene-splicing paved the
way for new theories of genetic development. And, I will argue later, the
more sophisticated and mature the science, the more embedded and indebted to
its technological infrastructure it will be.

Now,
to speak of the obvious, the account given above is loaded with contentious
notions. To accomplish the goal of a philosophically sophisticated and
historically accurate account of scientific change, I am proposing some new
vocabulary and some different ways of conceptualizing familiar issues.
Therefore, to begin with I will spend some time unpacking some of the more
superficially obnoxious claims. After doing a little philosophical work here
with some examples, I will explore some of the unsettling consequences of this
explanation of scientific change.

Let
me begin by providing some rationale for introducing new terminology and for
offering new definitions of familiar notions. Elsewhere I have argued about
the evils of reifying technology, science, government, etc. (Pitt, 1999, in
press) Reification, making an abstract or general noun into a thing in the
world, is responsible for a category mistake with real world consequences. It
allows for the misapplication of normative assessments, resulting in claims
like ”technology is threatening our way of life.” Nothing could be
more preposterous. Technology is doing no such thing. It is the application
by people of specific technologies in certain ways that sometimes creates
problems. In short there is some truth to the bumper sticker that reads
”guns don’t kill, people do." I have simply translated that
insight into a general reluctance to talk about ”technology”
simpliciter.
I have also gone further than merely displaying a reluctance, I have offered
and defended a definition of technology, angering some, which redirects our
attention to people, and reduces the emphasis on artifacts; thus, technology
is humanity at work.

Now
these considerations clearly have ramifications for my main notion regarding
scientific change, which is a technological infrastructure. On this account, a
technological infrastructure is that assembly of different forms of work
relations among people which makes the doing of science possible. To put it in
this way automatically includes the people, artifacts, institutions and
networks which constitute the environment within which work occurs. Described
in this fashion, it entails that appeals to any specific development in a
science must be historically contextualized, because science must involve the
working relationships which make that particular form of social activity what
it is at that time. Thus, there can be no general rule or universal
explanation for changes in a science, beyond the recognition that what happened
was a function of a multiplicity of factors working at that time. In short it
depends on the institutions within which scientific activity occurred and the
sources of support for that activity—for example, today it might be the
National Science Foundation; in 17th-century Florence it was either the
university or the court of the Medici—the people, the politics, social
influences and fads, etc. The institutions themselves are the contingent
product of a variety of historical and social forces.

At
this point I need to interject a caveat to forestall shouts of glee by
postmodernists. By recognizing the historical contingency of science, it does
not follow that science is, therefore, only one activity among others, none of
which can claim some sort of epistemic virtue which allows it to be identified
as the premier knowledge producing activity. The evidence, which is all
around us, is that, in fact, and let me stress the fact of the matter, in fact,
scientific activity, of all our activities, is the best at producing the
knowledge which allows us to understand and manipulate the natural world. The
historical contingency of any particular scientific success or failure does not
undermine the fact that nothing has provided us with the scope and depth of
knowledge science has. And by science, I mean the set of activities associated
with the totality of specific investigations into the structure and make-up of
the universe. Now to return to the topic at hand.

If
we are going to talk about scientific change, we need to talk about specific
scientific changes and the contexts in which they occurred. But, it might be
asked, how do we identify the context? The answer is that if it
is
a
specific context, then it will be an historical item, locatable in space and
time. The technological infrastructure will then be that set of working
relationships without which that specific scientific development could not have
happened. (Identifying the context is one thing, understanding it is another.
This is where the history and the sociology come in.)

At
this point two objections come up: (1) to assume that one can identify factors
contributing to certain scientific developments, in the counterfactual context
that were one of these factors not present, the developments in question would
not have happened, suggests a commitment to a dubious sense of social
causation; (2) to claim that if a technological infrastructure is that
without which the scientific development could not have happened, then is not
the door opened to including everything? Let us consider these in order.

First,
I am not proposing an account of social causation. Rather, I am offering a
justification for selecting the relevant factors for producing an accurate
description of a technological infrastructure. Thus, in the historical context
under discussion, given the kinds of mechanisms, tools, tool-makers, groups,
patronage systems, etc., that actually existed, is it possible to give an
adequate explanation of how what happened happened without including factor x
or y? In so arguing, it may be the case that several different causal factors
are appealed to, but no one single account of causation is being assumed.
Thus, the grant from NSF which funded the laboratory in which the crucial
experiment took place is causal, but not in the same way that flipping the
switch on the microscope is.

The
second objection asks whether we are not opening the door to including
everything, since it seems that with a little ingenuity, anything can be
shown to be relevant to something. To take a trivial example, if we want to
explain the change from a geocentric theory of the structure of the universe to
a heliocentric theory, then surely this will require that we not only detail
the standard and familiar events (Copernicus and the calendar), players (Kepler
and Galileo), institutions (the Medici court and the Catholic church) , but
that we also consider such factors as the educational and familial backgrounds
of those who supported the change and those who did not, and the political and
economic factors that infused their thinking, the geography of the lands they
own, the number of servants they maintain,
ad
infinitum
.
Where do we stop? The garden of Eden?

Obviously
this is not a desirable result. Further, since what actually happened in the
past occurred in the seamless flow of time, fixing a context will always be
arbitrary to some extent. However, the solution to the problem is one which
appears naturally when we are setting it up this way. The point to stress is
that the relevant factors to be included as constituting any specific
technological infrastructure of science are the ones which make a difference as
to whether or not the event in question would have happened. When we are
speaking of science, two related criteria for selecting relevant factors come
to mind: (1) making a difference means making a difference in the epistemic
content of the change in question, and (2) explanatory coherence. Let us now
look at each of these in turn.

Making
an epistemic difference. Remember we are talking about a theory of change in
the process of science. So, if scientist X is led by reason of personal
ambition to establish his own laboratory rather than continue to work in
Renowned Scientist G’s laboratory, and X fails to get funding, and no
publishable findings are produced, then it is unlikely that this is a factor to
be included in the relevant factors explaining the success of Renowned
Scientist G’s laboratory in discovering a new mechanism. Someone might
try to argue that had disgruntled scientist X continued in G’s
laboratory, given his disruptive personality, the eventual success of the lab
would never have occurred. Now that
is
a counterproductive counterfactual, and does not contribute to our
understanding of why G’s lab produced the results it did. Hypothesizing
as to what might have happened does not affect what did happen.

That
was a negative example of sorts. Let us look at a positive example. In a
complete explanation of the impact of the Hubble space based telescope on
cosmology, it will be important to include an account of the resources
available to the U.S. shuttle program which made it possible for the needed
adjustments to be made to the telescope after it was launched and it was
discovered that the main mirror was defective. That is, an adequate account of
the new changes that are taking places in cosmology due to the observations of
the Hubble would not have taken place were it not possible to fix the mirror.
And yes, it is important to relate the fact that the Hubble as launched was
defective; otherwise, we relapse into the let-us-only-tell-about-successes mode
of history of science, which results in an inadequate explanation of why
cosmological theories changed. It is inadequate because it ignores factors
relevant to having those changes take place. In particular, it explains the
acceptance by astronomers of the findings of Hubble observations and their
willingness to allow those findings to force changes in their theories. For if
the mirror had not been repaired, then the value of the resulting observations
would be diminished. That it was repaired, using already agreed upon
techniques, is very important. It made it possible for the Hubble telescope
to be calibrated. And as Alan Franklin (
Perspectives
on Science
,
1997, 5:1:31) argues,

Calibration,
the use of a surrogate signal to standardize an instrument, is an important
strategy for the establishment of the validity of experimental results. If an
apparatus reproduces known phenomena, then we legitimately strengthen our
belief that the apparatus is working properly and that the experimental results
produced with that apparatus are reliable.

If
the Hubble could not be calibrated, then no scientific results would be
forthcoming. Important for our purposes is recognizing that the calibration of
instruments is crucial to using the instrument to generate new information, but
it is not itself doing science. The science can only take place after the
instrument is calibrated. But clearly calibration of instruments constitutes
just what we have been talking about as part of a technological infrastructure,
just as the instruments are part of it.

Now
what we want from a philosophical theory of scientific change is an account
which explains why this happened rather than something else. Consider the
following: for many years I was puzzled by the fact that while everyone
acknowledges Galileo’s contribution to the Scientific Revolution and the
importance of his last book,
Discourses
on Two New Sciences,
nevertheless, Galileo’s own form of scientific methodology seemed to have
died with him. There is no Galilean school of physics; there are no clear
Galileans as there are Newtonians. Why is this so? It took me twenty years,
but I think I now have the answer (Pitt, 1992). As it turns out,
Galileo’s use of geometry is the key to understanding his science. To
this end, it is also important to realize that his commitment to geometry was
so strong that he urged others not to take up the study of alegra, the new
mathematics being introduced. The reason there are no Galileans is that
Galileo, for all his greatness, picked the wrong form of mathematics with which
to work. The cumbersome proofs of geometry were quickly being replaced by
faster and easier-to-use algebraic methods. Galilean science died because
geometry was replaced by algebra and then by the calculus. (It is a bit more
complicated, but that is the heart of it.)

But
why did Galileo stick to geometry? That requires explanation. An easy and
ready account is that he was getting old, and he was virtually blind when he
finished the
Discorsi,
which
he had been working on virtually all his adult life. It would have been rather
difficult to change mathematical methods at this late stage. This would seem to
be reasonable. But there is one more thing, something that really makes a
difference—for many centuries the Latin translation of Euclid’s
geometry in use had a flawed version of Book 5. In 1544 a new translation of
Archimedes appeared which included the correct version of Euclid’s Book
5, in which a clean account of Definition 4 is given. It is a definition which
had been badly garbled both Boethius and by the Arabic translators. Its
correct form reads: ”Magnitudes are said to have a ratio of one to
another which are capable, when multiplied, of exceeding one another.”
Galileo took his own definition of ratio from this relatively new translation
of the definition and made it the basis for the derivation of most of his
theorems. Because Galileo insisted on not compounding magnitudes of different
types and because of his demand for complete rigor and proof (following
Archimedes), Galileo thought he
had
the basis for a new mathematical method. Why did he not adopt algebra?
Because he thought he had a new method of his own.

This
example is instructive for several reasons. First, it helps me make the point
that geometry is used by Galileo in the same way that a hammer is used by a
carpenter. In short, it is very much a technology. It is a tool which
enhances human capacity for changing the world. Second, not every change in
science is fruitful. In epistemology it is important also to explain how we
make mistakes. No adequate epistemology can neglect to do that. In the
history and philosophy of science it is equally important to explain failures
and dead ends. It is not enough to merely account for the successes. And it
is not sufficient to say that X failed where Y succeeded because X was
irrational. (I find it somewhat rewarding to note that it takes work in the
philosophy of technology to accomplish what philosophers of science have been
unable to.) Third, it is worthwhile noting that despite the fact that
Galileo’s methodology failed to attract adherents, geometry was not
discarded as false or useless. It remains a viable tool.

Finally,
this example puts us in a position to turn to the second criterion for
selecting factors to define a context and subsequently a technological
infrastructure. The determination of whether various factors should be
included in the determination of an historical context must meet the criterion
of explanatory coherence. If the things to be included do not contribute to
the coherence of the explanation being offered, they should be eliminated. I
think the role of the new translation of Euclid’s Definition 4 helps to
explain why Galileo selected the method he did for his proofs and why there
were no Galileans to take up his research program. The fact that he did not
marry his long time mistress does not. Nor is it relevant that at this time
Cardinal Richelieu held power in France.

Let
us now turn to the question of how an historical context contributes to our
understanding of a technological infrastructure for science. It becomes one
when the factors selected can be shown to make an epistemological difference
with respect to specific scientific developments, thereby explaining what
happened in a manner which brings the relevant factors into a coherent story.
That it is a
technological
infrastructure
is a function of the fact that it identifies the players—human,
artifactual, epistemological, institutional—and their interrelations in
which the events in question took place.

A
mature science is a complicated thing. It is not merely a theory. By
concentrating on the logical structure of theories, philosophers of science
have done some good things, but they have not made it possible to do the
important philosophical job, which is, as Wilfrid Sellars put it, ”To see
how things, in the broadest possible sense, hang together, in the broadest
possible sense” (Sellars, 1963, p. 3).

Concentrating
on the logic of theories does not tell us how science gets done. Before there
are data to be used as evidence, there are laboratories and the places where
the laboratories are located. And where they are located makes a difference.
For example, different kinds of pressures apply in commercial labs as opposed
to laboratories in universities. There are different objectives to be met. In
some commercial labs, the emphasis is on commercially viable results. In some
academic labs the emphasis is on securing grants to ensure the continuation of
the research program (and the generation of overhead for the university
administration to play with). In addition to the kinds of issues just noted,
science includes laboratory assistants, experimental apparatus, the
interactions among the members of the community (no, I am not talking about the
social construction of scientific results) which fuel ideas and techniques.
In short, if we play out the list of things we need to consider, we will find
ourselves looking at the full scope of the working relations among those people
involved in the investigation of nature. And if technology is humanity at
work, then those relations and players constitute a technological
infrastructure.

In
closing, it seems appropriate to consider the down side of the view I am
proposing. Cosmology is the science concerned with explaining the universe as
a whole. It uses data gathered from a variety of instruments, telescopes of
various kinds in varying locations. These instruments themselves embody
numerous theoretical assumptions, from optics to electronics to the manufacture
of ball bearings. The increased use of computers to manipulate data
incorporates yet another wide ranging set of assumptions, some of them having
to do with computer languages, others with the reliability of hardware. The
kind of explanations cosmologists generate do not, therefore, merely rely on
the evidence pure and simple. The question, to my mind, is, how much of the
theory is a function of the technology? In mature sciences, it appears that
the more embedded the science is in its technological infrastructure, the more
the infrastructure drives the science. Thus when we attempt to ascertain the
cause of a change in theory, we will find it increasingly difficult to point to
specific causal factors. I suppose we could simply say that it is the Hubble
telescope that is forcing us to revise our cosmological theories. But that
would simply be false. How that instrument is used, the kinds of support
systems it requires, and how they influence the generation of images, cannot be
ignored. If what I have been suggesting is correct, then we need to know a
great deal more about the supporting systems and the environment in order to
understand just what it is the science is telling us. And when the science is
thus embedded in its technological infrastructure, changing scientific theories
can only be accomplished by rejecting the technological infrastucture or by
finding another theory which uses the same infrastucture, at which point the
science is still captive to the technology. Thus, explaining scientific change
will require a full account of the technological infrastructure of that science
if we are to understand what kind of a change we are witnessing.